I became an avid DS owner last Christmas (mainly because I couldn’t get my hands on a Wii – and it seemed like a logical consolation prize) and yet still I have only got three games – Brain Training, Mario Kart and Super Mario.
It was therefore with unbridled glee that I greeted a message from a friend telling me that SimCity DS was soon to be released.
I searched the Internet and stumbled upon the obligatory game microsite – complete with “send-to-a-friend”, “flash-game” and all the other bits and pieces expected.
Now, it takes a while to load, I’ll admit that, and I was in a slightly overexcited mood when I visited the site, but still I was fairly impressed by the DS microsite. I loved the animations – the little slice of city. I wanted to interact, to build, to knock down, to put my mark on the city (a city of around 5 buildings). You can’t do any of that – but it does make you want the game.
Dig deeper and the site is less satisfying. Finding out the game must be done via boxes that are inexplicably too small – forcing you to scroll up and down – or via slow, bordering on painful, videos that explain the bleeding obvious (you build a city). I’m sure that someone forgot to include most of the planned content – somehow it just doesn’t tell you much about the game.
Looking back having got the game now and played it I realise that some of the frustrating features perfectly mirror the game’s frustrating features – so perhaps hands tied on that one (I’m thinking of the annoying yellow speech bubbles that load oh-so-slowly).
The microsite plays up “Wi-Fi” as one of the three game features. An interesting idea since the Wi-Fi features in the game are almost pointless. Then there’s the mini-game. It’s basically Pipe Mania but with bits of road and a car rather than pipes and liquid. A cracking game that I have fond memories of (and so do a few others in the office). Now either I’m absolutely rubbish at the SimCityDS version (very unlikely) – or it’s next to impossible. The jury is out on that one. It’s difficult to tell because there is no high-score table. Why on earth not?
(I’m rubbish at this as you can see from my paltry score.
But enough moaning already – the site works! I bought a copy a day or two later. Without reading any reviews.
And then the game… I’ve been playing it for about a week now – pretty much solidly. It all ended in tears the first time; no money, large loans, no residents, bankruptcy. I don’t want to turn this into a full blown game review – I’m glad I bought it – but it lacks in some areas. There is a serious attention to detail problem. Probably due to budget/time constraints.
Example: There are two levels of zoom; when you use the arrow buttons, you move around. When zoomed out it goes at a reasonable speed. When zoomed in, not only is it all a bit too close to be of any use, but the keys still move it the same speed as if zoomed out. The result is that a light tap on the left key sees you shooting violently left. I could go on.
The biggest flaws? A single save game slot and serious lack of cooperative features. When I started the game I was prompted to choose where to build my city. I was immediately excited by the prospect of filling each these slots one-by-one, joining them up. Perhaps my girlfriend could build a city in an adjacent square to mine and then we could join them up. But no – one city at a time. One player at a time. Wi-Fi? Not really. You can send “mail” to people – but only by choosing from the pre-defined list of messages, and only if they have SimCity, and only if they are sat next to you.
Enough about the game though… you can read a brilliant and accurate review here.
In summary, I liked the microsite. I just would have liked to be able to read the text easier. And find out more information about the game. And figure out if anyone is any good at the microgame (high score table). And perhaps build my own monument. And then send that to my friend. Or save it in a gallery. Or import it into my DS. Who knows… there seems like a lot of scope for SimCity DS #2 – both website and game.
But an enjoyable enough start.
Go and buy it! You know you want to.
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